


Playing the Fool

by compos_dementis



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes forgetting is the right thing to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing the Fool

Ludwig stumbles into his own home like a stranger tonight. His boots are heavy, black and thick, and they make echoing footsteps on the hardwood floor.

 

The house is near to empty, but he knows the presence here. It always awaits him when he comes back from battle (blood-drenched, war-torn), and greets him with smiles and laughter and pasta and other silly things he hasn’t the time for. But tonight… well, tonight he hears nothing.

 

It would worry him, were he in the state of mind he was in a few years ago. Tonight he simply feels his head ache and fumbles in the kitchen for pain medication, tearing open cabinets while his head pounds to the time of his heart—

 

(_Austria’s metronome. Tick-tick-tick-tick… tick-tick-tick-tick… waking from sleep and hearing experimental piano from downstairs. “Don’t be shy, Ludwig. Come and listen.”_)

 

He takes his arm and sweeps it across the counter and sends the bottles and bottles of pills scattering to the floor. Aspirin, Tylenol, ibuprofen…

 

Why does it hurt so damn much?

 

_Scheiss. _

 

Hands stammering, Ludwig scrabbles for one of those bottles, on his knees, breath coming shakily, and he works the childproof cap hard enough to break it. The pills are bitter in his mouth without any water and he swallows them dry.

 

Hurts. Hurts worse than anything he’s ever felt before, ripping through him like a storm, causing his shaking hands to find stability by fisting in his normally neat hair. He lays there and trembles and takes in gasping breaths and tries to remember when he was small, when Prussia would hold him tight to soothe the headaches.

 

All the damn headaches.

 

(_“One day you’ll grow up nice and strong, and the headaches won’t bother you anymore.” Then why are they still here? Fresh, new, painful, a hundred times worse?_)

 

“G…Germany?”

 

The voice is soft and sounds almost timid, though he’s far more used to hearing it in sing-song, babbling on and on about nothing in particular. Tonight, Feliciano is just as quiet as the fearful Poles in his prisons. The fearful Jews. The deaf, the sick, the homosexual. Anyone who isn’t “perfect.” But who decides? Who chooses what it means to be perfect?

 

These headaches. The result of that search for perfection.

 

“Fel… ahh-“ He can’t finish, brings his hands up to press against his temples and push as hard as he can as if hoping to crush his own skull. Maybe he is.

 

His eyes are squeezed shut, but he can hear Feliciano’s surprise. “Ger… Ludwig? Ludwig, what’s wrong?”

 

“Go away, Feliciano, don’t come- Just go away, go to bed!” Ludwig’s voice comes strangled and thin, and Feliciano’s not leaving, just standing there and staring, and no, he can’t see him like this… can’t see him this weak, this broken-down, struggling just to stand up.

 

(“_Holy Rom_-“)

 

“Ludwig…” Feliciano’s not leaving. Instead he comes forward and kneels a bit by his side and looks frightened, oh, frightened, brown eyes wide and hands reaching out to take his shoulders.

 

(_Hands too small to hold on correctly. Feliciano…? Laughing. “You’ll grow up so tall, Holy R_—“)

 

“Ludwig, please tell me what’s—“

 

“Just go- Just go to bed, Italy, it’s okay, go to bed…”

 

“Ludwig…” And Feliciano’s arms are going around him, holding him in, stronger than he would like Ludwig to think. Ludwig is still shaking but the pain dissipates, and he swallows, and goes to push him away – but his hands turn traitor and pull him closer instead. “It’s okay, Ludwig. I’m here, it… it’s okay.”

 

So backwards. It should be the other way around, but Ludwig is weakened as the end of this war nears (as America enters the war fully armed and fully righteous), and he can’t help but grab onto Feliciano’s shirt and pull and bury his face in him like some kind of child.

 

(“_You can’t fight this war, Ludwig.” Austria’s voice. “You’re just a child. You’re too small. France will tear you apart_.”)

 

Feliciano says nothing, for once. He strokes his hair like someone much taller once had, and presses a kiss to his forehead, to his nose, to his lips… and they are silent together.

 

In the morning, Feliciano is back to being the Fool. He smiles and laughs and talks about pasta, and any memory of the headaches and of the kiss is tucked away and forgotten.

 

Ludwig knows Feliciano isn’t stupid. But maybe sometimes just sitting back, being the Fool, is the smart thing to do.

 

Sometimes… forgetting is the right thing to do.


End file.
